Telecommunications networks, such as the Internet, are expected to become predominant means for distributing multimedia content (e.g., video and audio or audio) to end users. The quality of the viewer experience is a key barrier to the growth of video viewing on-line. Even with current capacity and demand, performance can be uneven, with streams starting slowly, stopping unexpectedly, or exhibiting synchronization issues. Many of these issues can be traced to the unpredictable nature of the Internet and uncertain capacity at the consumer access level. Consumer expectations for online video, however, are set by their previous television and movie viewing experiences.
Appointment TV and “live” event broadcasts, whether distributed over the air, via cable, or through satellite, attract very large audiences. There is growing interest and demand for streaming and viewing video of “live” events on the Internet. Streaming of data files or “streaming media” refers to technology that delivers sequential multimedia content at a rate sufficient to present the multimedia to a user at the originally anticipated playback speed without significant interruption. In this context, “live” means that the multimedia content is anchored to a particular point in time for playing the multimedia content. That is, particular pieces of multimedia content of the live event are played by a media player according to a schedule of the live event; for example, the beginning of the video is scheduled to be played by the media player at a particular point in time.
Streaming multimedia content of live events over the Internet has numerous challenges, namely that network congestion or other delivery issues may reside or otherwise fall within the purview of a third party intermediary that is responsible for managing, regulating, or otherwise controlling a particular aspect of delivery between end points, such as, for example, an Internet backbone provider, an Internet service provider (ISP), a content delivery network (CDN), or the like. While it is to some extent possible to improve streaming capabilities through dedicated infrastructure upgrades or bandwidth, the expenditures necessary to accommodate both current and anticipated future demand can be exorbitant. Thus, adaptive bit rate streaming is commonly utilized to compensate for delivery issues, at the expense of compromising the video quality, and thereby the viewing experience.
In view of the foregoing, it is now desirable to provide techniques for delivering digital media content in a reliable manner, over telecommunications networks, under varying degrees of congestion, and in a cost effective manner without compromising the viewing experience. Other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.